called an image, as arbitrarily suggesting the representation to the mind, it may be styled a corporeal species, though nothing similar to itself is transmitted from the object,-it may be denominated an idea, though it is not the immediate object of the mind,*-and, finally, the mind may be said to contemplate this material motion, impression, image, species, idea, &c., though it has no consciousness of this bodily affection in itself, and only turns or applies itself to this conformation of the brain, in order to find the corporeal antecedent, which, according to the laws and nature of its union, must precede and arbitrarily determine the mental representation of the outward existence which is the immediate object of its perception.+

* Epist. P. ii. ep. 54,Alio sensu includo imaginationes in definitione cogitationis; alio sensu excludo; nempe forma sive species corporea, quæ debent esse in cerebro, ut quid imaginemur, non sunt cogitationes; sed operatio mentis imaginantis, sive ad istas species se convertentis, est cogitatio.' Descartes did not verbally distinguish between the motions in the brain, which are the occasions of perceptions in the mind, and the representations in the mind itself. He called them both ideas. The ambiguity is removed by De la Forge, who applies the term 'corporeal species' to the affection in the brain, and the terms idea,''intellectual notion,' to the spiritual representation in the conscious mind. De l'Esprit, c. 10. The image or modification of the brain in the Cartesian, corresponds to what in the Leibnitio-Wolfian School was called the material idea: the idea, properly so called, of Descartes, or the mental representation, answers to what was termed the sensual idea, by Wolf.

[See the Responsiones Quintæ, De iis quæ in Sextam Meditationem objectæ sunt. Hic queris, quomodo existimem in me subjecto inextenso recipi posse speciem, ideamve corporis quod extensum est. Respondeo nullam speciem corpoream in mente recipi, sed puram intellectionem tam rei corporem quam incorporeæ fieri absque ulla specie corporea; ad imaginationem vero, quæ non nisi de rebus corporeis esse potest, opus quidem esse specie quæ sit verum corpus, et ad quam mens se applicet, sed non quæ in mente recipiatur.'-ED.] Compare Le Grand, Institutio Philosophiæ secundum Principia Renati Descartes, P. viii. c. x. (ed. 4, Lond. 1680, p. 537):-'Ita enim sumusa Natura comparati, ut occasione quorumdam motuum, qui in organis fiunt, quasdam in mente ideas rerum ac figuras nobis repræsentemus.' Ibid., c. xxii. p. 578:-Phantasia, seu Imaginatio, aliud non est, quam quædam facultatis cognoscitivæ applicatio, ad corpus (scilicet cerebrum) ipsi intime præsens. Imaginationis enim species earum rerum imaginem concipere faciunt, tanquam mentis nostræ oculis præsentem. Nam quando objectum aliquod imaginamur, mens se ad corpus convertit, ad ibi imaginem, aut effigiem, quam apprehendit, veluti suæ cogitationi interne præsentem, contemplandum.' Cf. Ibid.,

If it be said, that, on this theory of mediate perception, we retain no evidence of the reality of an external world corresponding to the representations of our own minds, the Cartesian answers, that our assurance for the existence of material architypes of our perceptions rests on our knowledge of the character of God; for to suppose that there existed no external substances, as represented by our minds by the necessity of our nature, would be to suppose the Creator a deceiver of his creatures-an hypothesis inconsistent with the moral and physical perfections of the Deity. And if it further be objected, that we have the same evidence of consciousness for the immediate perception, as for the actual existence, of external objects,-nay, that our belief of the latter is only the necessary consequence of our conviction of the former, and consequently that either God is a deceiver in the one instance, or the hypothesis of a vicarious perception is false in the other, Descartes is forced to maintain that, notwithstanding the universal belief of mankind, that the immediate object of the mind in perception is the material reality itself, and that, as we perceive that object under its actual conditions, so we are no less conscious of its existence, independently of our minds, than we are conscious of the existence of our own mind, independently of external objects,-notwithstanding this belief, he was bold enough to maintain that we are not precisely conscious that the immediate object of our perception is external and independent of our faculties, although it is difficult, if not impossible, to institute a criticism of the contents of this consciousness, in consequence of the early and deep-rooted prejudice by which we are led to attribute to the immediate objects of our perceptions an external and principal, instead of an internal and vicarious, existence.*

The statement I have here given of the

P. ix. c. iv., p. 598, where the motions from the organs of sense are described as giving occasion to the mind to form its ideas, the motions themselves not being conceived.

* Principia, P. i. § 66-69, P. ii. § 1-3; cf. Tennemann, x. pp. 248-51. In Principia, P. iv. § 196, Descartes maintains that it is a mere self-deceit to suppose that things are perceived in the organ of sensation (e.g. scents in the nose, savours on the tongue, hardness or softness with the fingers), these being really perceived only in that part of the brain which is the root of the soul. Schulze, Kritik der theoretischen Philosophie, vol. ii. p. 35. See also Le Grand, Institutio, P. viii. c. xi., p. 540.

Cartesian doctrine of Perception, is the result of an acquaintance with the whole works of Descartes himself, and with the writings both of the most eminent philosophers of his school, and of its most distinguished antagonists. In particular, I may mention the excellent treatise of De la Forge 'De l'Esprit de l'Homme,' the Cours de Philosophie' of Silvain Regis, the 'Institutio Philosophia' of Le Grand, the Work of Du Hamel, De Mente Humana,' the Clavis Philosophiæ' of De Raei, to say nothing of the writings of Derodon, Huetius, Gassendi, Chauvin, Vries, Wolf, Malebranche, Arnauld, Purchot, &c., which contribute more or less to illustrate the doctrines of Descartes.

The doctrine of Descartes in regard to the relation of the mind to the organs of sense, proceeds on two principles, of which the one has been boldly postulated as selfevident from the earliest ages of philosophy, and the other has almost universally, though secretly, influenced the doctrines of psychology since the period of Descartes himself.

The former, which more immediately regards the relation of the mind to the objects of its knowledge,-is contained in the proposition, that the thinking substance can have no immediate knowledge of the qualities of another different from it in the essential properties of its nature. The latter,-which more immediately regards the relation of the mind to the organs of sense,-is the supposition that an immaterial substance cannot be intimately or universally united with the body without arguing its own materiality. The operation of the former principle has either degraded the mind to the nature of the material objects of its sensations, or it has elevated the objects of its sensation to the spiritual nature of the mind: in the former instance it has occasioned the hypothesis of materialism, in the latter all the theories of a vicarious perception, idealism, &c. The latter has likewise

produced similar results. Those philosophers who were not disposed to sacrifice the evidence of their consciousness to philosophical hypothesis, held that our perceptions were in fact in the places in which we are conscious of the sensation -an opinion which, from their confidence in the principle, they could not distinguish from materialism; while others sacrificed the evidence of their consciousness, and held that the mind is limited, and only perceives and feels in the region of the brain-a doctrine which they imagined was more easily reconcileable to the immaterial nature of the soul.

As these two [principles] lie at the bottom of almost all philosophical theories, as I believe they have never been fully developed, and as they must necessarily be [examined] in relation to the present discussion, I say a few words in regard to them; and first, of the first.

We

1. That all knowledge consists in a certain relation of the object known to the subject knowing, is self-evident. What is the nature of this relation, and what are its conditions, is not, and never can be, known to us; because we know only the qualities of our own faculties of knowledge, as relations to their objects, and we only know the qualities of their objects, as relations to our minds. All qualities both of mind and of matter, are therefore only known to us as relations we know nothing in itself. know not the cause of this relation, we know nothing of its conditions; the fact is all. The relation is the relation of knowledge. We know nothing consequently of the kind of the relation; we have no consciousness and no possible knowledge whether the relation of knowledge has any analogy to the relations of similarity, contrariety, identity, difference we have no consciousness that it is like any other, or any modification of any other. These are all relations of a different kind between object and object; this between subject and object: we can institute no point of comparison.

and the theory of Malebranche in regard to cognitions in the Divine mind, are precisely the reverse of each other. The former resorted to the Deity, in order to explain the possibility of an intellection by a finite mind of necessary and eternal truths; the latter, to explain the perception by an unextended, spiritual, and immanent subject of extended, material, and external objects. The one, therefore, does not afford the anticipation of the other. For the same and other reasons, the Malebranchian hypothesis cannot be traced to that of Alexander, Themistius, Averroes, and other Mahomedan philosophers, Cajetanus and Zabarella, in regard to the unity of intellect (active or passive) in the human species, and the identity of that intellect with God. That Malebranche, however, was forestalled in his peculiar hypothesis may, I think, be shown.

A distant approximation to this may be seen in the opinion of Buccaferreus, that the species or immediate object of sensible perception is the product of a celestial agency; and still more in the parallel opinion of Suessanus, that this agency is the Divine. The following, however, is a far more explicit enouncement of the Malebranchian doctrine in regard to our vision of external objects in the Deity. It is from the Physica Particularis of Petrus Galtruchius, forming the first part of his Philosophia totius Institutio, and from the chapter De Natura Speciei Impresso; the edition I quote from is the second, published at Caen in 1665, that is, nine years before the appearance of the Recherche de la Verité, but the first remounts to the year 1601. It is curious that this preoccupation of the Malebranchian theory is by a Jesuit-one of that order by whom the philosophy of Malebranche was, with that of Descartes, most zealously opposed, and even proscribed. Speaking of the function of species impressa, in regard to sense, he says:-"Notabis 2°. Proprium quidem illud munus debere esse objecti, quantum est de se, ut determinet potentiam ad sui cognitionem, cum ipsa concurrendo ad inferendum cognitionis actum. Eam enim ob causam objectum sufficienter potentiæ unitum, ab ea cognoscitur sine specie impressa: ut quidem fert communis sententia de Angelo seipsum cognoscente, et de Deo fungente vices Speciei

For the theory of these philosophers, as for those of Buccaferreus and Suessanus mentioned below, see above, Note M, p. 956.-ED.

impressæ in intellectu beatifico. Quippe Angelus ad cognoscendum alium Angelum, aut aliud creatum objectum, indiget specie impressa ipsius vicaria, cum de se hujusmodi objectum non postulet esse illi semper et necessario intime præsens; et quidem illa præsentia, quæ dicitur per illapsum, potentiam cognoscitivam penetrando intime per jugem influxum ipsius efficienter conservativum. Deus autem sic intime est præsens omni creato intellectui, per suam essentiam : quamobrem potest in eo fungi vices Speciei impressæ, tum ad cognitionem creaturæ cujuscunque; tum ad visionem ipsius Divinæ essentiæ. Neque idcirco hæc Dei actio ad extra erit magis necessaria, quam actio Divinæ omnipotentiæ ad creandum Mundum; siquidem illa omnis est veluti subordinata ejus Libero Arbitrio, unde, veluti imperative saltem, ac denominative, est libera; ut scribit Suarez De Deo, Lib. ii. c. 12 n. 22. Ne quid etiam dicam de libero ejus concursu universali ad actum visionis beatificæ, a quo præterea multiplex genus deterininationis accipit, quemadmodum explicatur Disp. de Deo, c. 7, Ass. 1. Nec contra hanc doctrinam objicias, Animam rationalem, etsi præsens est intime et per illapsum intellectui suo, indigere tamen specie impressa ad cognitionem sui ipsius, quod a pari dicendum foret de Angelo, &c. Respondeo, Animam quidem separatam non habere opus specie impressa ad sui cognitionem, ob rationem allatam; verum, in corpore adhuc existens, pro hoc statu, siquidem nihil cognoscit, nisi per conversionem ad Phantasmata, ut suo loco exponam, ideo accipit speciem sui impressam, quo, hunc saltem in modum, notitiam sui obtineat."

In the system of Malebranche the existence of a material world is an otiose hypothesis.* This incumbrance to the simplicity of his system was not rejected by Malebranche, and his philosophy modified to an absolute idealism, only, as I have already stated (p. 358 a, n. *), because the negation of the reality of body was apparently inconsistent with the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. This likewise seems to have been the reason, as formerly noticed (p. 285 b, n. t), why the Schoolmen were pre

Malebranche, in his Premier Entretien sur la Métaphysique, § 5, supposes that God should an

nihilate the material world, and should, the world being gone, still produce in our mind the ideas which are now related to it,-all, [he says,] would be as it now is. The supposition is identical with Berkeley's Idealism. The same supposition is often made by the Schoolmen.

vented from fallling over into Idealism, to the verge of which the prevailing doctrine of species carried them, and, they were fully aware, left them no means of philosophical salvation. Since these footnotes were written, I have given some detailed proofs upon this point in the 68th volume of the Edinburgh Review, p. 337, sq., and the passages there adduced from the Fathers might be fortified by many others from the Schoolmen of a still more precise application. I may notice that the difference between the

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* Reprinted in Discussions, p. 198.-ED.

Idealism of Malebranche, Berkeley, and Collier, and the Idealism of Fichte, is this, that, on the former hypothesis, God is supposed to represent to us a world unknown, as Malebranche, a world nonexistent, as Berkeley and Collier hold, whereas, on the latter hypothesis, the Mind, the Ego, is supposed to do this in conformity to certain unknown laws to which its agency is astricted. The Theistical and the Egoistical Idealism, considered as philosophical constructions, have each their peculiar merits and defects: on these, however, this is not the place to enter.

[Of this Note, nothing appears to have been written beyond two short papers of memoranda, the substance of which is comprised in the following remarks.-ED.]

Reid not wrong in substance in his criticism of Hume, in saying that Hume denied us the idea (notion) of power or necessary connection. For Hume admitted the notion of necessary connection as an ideal or subjective phænomenon, as a fact; [but,] by tracing its genealogy, he attempted to subvert its real or objective validity. This was the very strongest Scepticism-to shew that belief actual, irresistible-but that belief delusive. (See Ess. II. p. 84.)

The mode he takes to shew that notions of necessary connection-powercause and effect-are illegitimate, is the following.

Accepting the admitted [hypothesis] of Locke that all our knowledge—all our notions-formed a posteriori, or from experience, he shews that the notion in question cannot be derived from that source-from any objective information. But, as a phænomenon, it must be admitted to exist subjectively. How, then, is it to be accounted for? On the admitted hypothesis always of Locke's philosophy, he shews, what is true, that we can attempt to explain it only in one other way, viz, by custom or habit. But this basis is in